"She showed the ballot to me and I didn't want to look," Shannon said. But the voter didn't want to hide the only vote she cast -- for Obama.

"She said, 'Did I do it right?'" Shannon said.

At Danbury High School, voters snaked down the hall and upstairs and then three times around the school gym at some points of the day.

In the first hour, more than 500 voted. Another 443 voted in the second hour, and then about 300 cast votes each hour for hours.

"We have 5,200 total voters at this polling place, and we had over 2,000 who voted by noon," said Regina Ofiero, the polling moderator at Danbury High. "In my 20 years of doing this, this is the busiest I've seen it."

Brookfield had 45 percent of its voters turn out by 1 p.m., plus 704 absentee ballots.

Washington had record turnouts in the morning, with 1,715 casting votes by mid-afternoon, moderator Barbara Boucher said.

"They voted earlier this year," she said. "I think they didn't want to miss out on the opportunity. It's all ages, and it's just terrific."